Zuraida: I never said I was an NUS grad

Zuraida noted Utusan Malaysia never contacted her for confirmation before publication. — Picture by Shafwan Zaidon

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 10 — Local Government and Housing Minister Zuraida Kamaruddin rejected a report that she claimed to be a National University of Singapore graduate, stating the assertion was made only in an anonymous Wikipedia entry.

Criticising the Utusan Malaysia newspaper for publishing the unverified snippet, she also noted it never contacted her for confirmation before publication.

“I have never claimed or held myself to be a graduate of NUS and I have never authorised anyone else to do so. I am also not responsible for the wrongful entry in Wikipedia which claims that I am NUS graduate.

“I am disappointed that the media did not verify this obviously fake news with me before publishing it,” she said in a statement yesterday.

The newspaper has removed the original article that prompted Zuraida’s response.

Focus on false academic qualifications began earlier this month after activist Muhsin Abdul Latheef lodged a police report over a Facebook post on February 3 asserting the University of Cambridge did not offer a distance-learning degree that Deputy Foreign Minister Datuk Marzuki Yahya supposedly possessed.

Marzuki initially sought to sidestep the issue but sleuthing by Malaysians forced him to clarify later that his degree was from the US-based Cambridge International University (CIU) rather than the prestigious UK institution.

The worth of his degree is also under additional doubt as the checks showed the CIU to be a suspected degree mill.